Kuwait Committee Recommends Rejecting Bids For $4.8bn Airport Expansion

A committee in Kuwait’s public works ministry has recommended that all bids to build a new terminal at the country’s international airport be rejected, state news agency KUNA reported on Sunday.

In November, the tender committee for the project said a consortium of Kuwait’s Kharafi National and Turkey’s Limak Holding had submitted the lowest bid for the contract, worth KD1.386 billion ($4.78 billion).

But KUNA quoted Kuwait’s minister for electricity, water and public works, Abdulaziz al-Ibrahim, as saying on Sunday that a technical committee in the ministry had recommended all bids be rejected. Ibrahim did not give a reason for the recommendation, but said the committee had studied all aspects of the bidding.

Last Thursday, Kuwait’s Al Watan newspaper quoted ministry sources as saying the lowest bid exceeded the estimated cost of the project by 39 per cent, and did not meet technical specifications.

Other bidders for the contract included China State Construction Engineering Corp and Dubai-based Arabtec. KUNA did not say on Sunday whether the technical committee’s recommendation to reject all bids would be adopted, or whether a new round of bidding might be arranged.

Kuwait has planned tens of billions of dollars worth of infrastructure projects in the last several years but has struggled to implement many of them because of bureaucratic delays, political tensions, and allegations of corruption and inefficiency.